Before entering the land that God has promised them, the Israelites sent twelve scouts over the Jordan River to determine the wealth of the land and its fortifications. All twelve returned with reports of a land that was abundant and fertile. They found grapes, pomegranates and figs to delight the senses.

Ten of the scouts, though, gave a report that focussed on the might of the inhabitants of the land: "The people who live in the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the Anakites there. Amalekites dwell in the southern region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country. Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan” (Numbers 13:27-29). The place, they said, was swarming with enemies.

The other two scouts, Caleb and Joshua, offered a more reassuring message about the land of Israel. They told the people, "Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it" (Numbers 13:30). But that is exactly when the first ten spies made the idea of conquering the land seem utterly impossible. They give a description that sounded more like a scene from a horror movie than a sober military assessment:

"The country that we traveled and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size. We saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites are part of the Nephilim—and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them" (Numbers 13:32-33).

Why did the message of the ten scouts change after Joshua and Caleb offered their positive assessment? Perhaps they wanted to make sure that their advice would be followed. To ensure that, they made the situation sound worse than it was. Maybe they were scared of dying in battle, so they painted a picture that would scare anyone. Perhaps they understood that when people are frightened by enemies, they will believe any horrible description of them.

What is more, people sometimes will believe anything about their own weakness in the face of an enemy they fear. They even will believe that they are grasshoppers.

This is an important lesson for us in this week's Torah portion (Shelach Lecha). We should be wary when we begin to believe that the forces that oppose us are giants. We should be skeptical when we are told that we are helpless in the face of an immense evil. We need to distinguish between the real challenges we face and the fears that we project into the monsters of our imagination.

How often has this happened to us in recent history? Manuel Noriega, Radovan Karadžić, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden each had his turn as the "villain du jour." Each was exaggerated out of proportion as a fearful giant who made us feel like vulnerable grasshoppers. Where are they now? Were all of our fears justified? In our fear, did we make errors in judgment? What will we do the next time someone tells us there are giants looming?

It is all too easy for us to be frightened into believing that we are grasshoppers. When we do, we forget that, with faith in ourselves and devotion to our ideals, we can be powerful beyond all adversity. That is what Caleb and Joshua tried to tell the Israelites — "Have no fear … the Lord is with us" (Numbers 14:9).

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